Lokasenna
by spherical
Summary: Lokasenna: the story of the Sif from start to finish, documenting their rise to power and their infinite struggles as they try to race against time--a time they do not know, to seek the cure for their inescapable curse: the Thorn.
1. In My Time of Need

_Lokasenna (Loki's flight, Loki's quarrel)- a Norse mythological poem of the Poetic Edda, where the Loki accuses the gods of sexual morals, bias, and Seidr during a feast provided by Ægir._

* * *

When I woke up it was bright. I couldn't see anything through this thick cloud of brightbrightbrightness, so I only winced and turned away. I couldn't hear much of anything other than distant noises, like ghosts, wandering and lost and calling to me, _where am I, where am I?_

I don't know I don't know I don't know leave me alone please--

But the first thing I feel is fear. The first thing I feel is pain.

I struggle, a trapped animal, always fighting, always so futile. My heart races and I panic but I don't know why. My breathing becomes hard and sweat forms on my brow and though the air is viciously cold I'm hot all over and I feel insanity pulse in my brain, as if it's the only thing keeping me alive.

When my vision adjusts I can barely make out the figures looking down at me as I struggle, cold and callous. And I struggle, a trapped animal, and they gaze down at me with their eyeless stare. I am a wild creature and they are superior. They're all in white, everything is so, so, white, so cold and rough at the edges like concrete snow.

I gasp, and adrenaline rushes through me. Everything around me is fake and artificial, the glaring lights, the cracked porcelain faces, but I am alive, I am so, so alive I can't stand it. When I'm freed of my shackles I sit up quickly, looking all around me. Why is the air so heavy? Why is it so hard to breathe?

Somebody suddenly walks in, and I look at them, fear in my eyes as I tremble all over. He approaches me. I back away. He mouths something at me that I don't understand, as if he's trying to explain something. I stare at him, hair on ends, waiting for something to make sense, anything. Nothing. He smiles at me and ruffles my hair and I shy away. He chuckles condescendingly as he pulls a small object--what is it?--and unwraps it and sticks it in his mouth. He tells the fakefake figures something and suddenly leaves. Helpless and confused, I know I have no choice. I have no choice in anything.

They grab me, their gloved hands ice against my skin and I try to break free of their grips. This doesn't work. They harshly throw some strange things at me and they shout strict orders at me, I don't know what they mean but I know that they're angry. Where did I go wrong?

One of them motions at me to put the things on.

What...?

I try it out, but clumsily stumble over. They end up helping dress me, since I am still very uncoordinated and can't quite get used to this "walking" thing yet. After I'm covered with the bizarre fabrics I'm thrown in some sort of metal box, a cell, a prison. I sit there under those same fake lights, reminding me endlessly of their cold and empty stares, the first thing I saw when I came into this world.

I tremble, curling myself up, feeling so scared, so cold, so alone in this strange new world. I rest but never fall into this thing humans call "sleep." I'm not a human, and so I'm not supposed to sleep.

I don't know how much later it is but all I know is that it's later.

A vague feeling against my head tells me to get up. I turn over, groaning. Again. I open an eye and realize one of Them is prodding my skull with their boot. I shakily try to stand up from the desolate floor, like a tundra, and they mutter something to me in their harsh voices. I don't know what it means but they start walking so I follow slowly, stumbling a few times.

Balance is difficult.

First I'm given this strange red liquid, which the sight of made my stomach growl. By instinct alone I understood, and I hastily took the glass of liquid and drank it down, making a mess of it in the process. This does not help my lowly animal sort of look. When I'm done I feel refreshed and satisfied. One of Them wipes me off with a white cloth and another starts trying to explain something to me again. Ugh. For creatures that think they're superior to me, they sure don't understand that I don't know what they're even saying! But I listen.

This person gives me these rectangular-shaped things and says they're "books." I examine it curiously. They say the word "book" again, slowly, making sure I'm looking up at them while they pronounce it out. They seem to want me to say it back.

So I try my best.

"B-bu-boo..k...?" I stammer in a stupid voice.

They nod back at me in approval. After a while I start getting a hang of it. I learn that this person teaching me all of these things is a doctor named Ms. Akako, who unlike most of the doctors here, is warm and nice and smells like summer and flowers, a thing I will never see.

"Now what is this a picture of?" she says as she holds up a piece of paper.

"A car!" I exclaim proudly, as if I'm the smartest thing in the world.

"Very good," she says, and smiles. She holds up another one. "What about this one?"

"That's Miss Akako!"

"Yes, yes, you're very clever!" she chuckles softly, and pushes up her glasses. She brushes away some blonde hair from her face.

"Now who's this young gentleman?"

I stare at the picture for a moment, almost entranced. I flash back to the moment of my creation, the second I see all those strange people and that one doctor who came in, who was supposed to be in charge or something, who was he, Van something..? Whatever.

"I... I..." I stammer, and shake myself from the spell. "That's... That's... Me..."

"Good, good!" Ms. Akako then reaches in her desk and pulls out a thick, old fashioned style book, the cover worn and the pages frayed at the ends.

"Can you tell me what this says?" She gestures towards the title.

"The Book of Humans..." I say, and tilt my head to the side in concentration.

"That's right," she says. "Once we have finished reading this book your education will be complete."

I gaze at the cover, tracing the letters in wonder. I feel the texture of the cover, leathery and stiff.

"Go ahead," Ms. Akako tells me. "Open it."

And I do. I turn over the front cover.

"Part one..." I whisper to myself.

"Go on and read it," she says reassuringly. "If you have any questions you can just ask me. I should be an expert, being a human myself!" She chuckles, winks at me.

As I start reading the first paragraph, I mutter quietly, "Okay..." and bury my face in the book.

This "Book of Humans" is very confusing.

In the first section the basics are described, what is a human, and what isn't. Zebras and lions and sheep aren't humans. They're animals. And then it says that I'm not human. This I don't get. If Miss Akako is human, and I have the same general characteristics, am I not human too...? But as I read on I come to learn that I am a sort of creation... A creation based off of these beasts the humans call "Chiroptera." It shows a picture of the hideous beast, saying it drinks the blood of people and is a vicious monster. I stare at it in astonishment. That can't be me... No way that can be me--

"Is something wrong...?" Ms. Akako says, breaking my train of thought.

I look up at her, startled. I stare at her for a moment, quivering. She's human... and I'm... a monster? I clutch my head.

"No..." I mutter heavily.

"What is it?"

"I'm... I'm not a monster... Am I, Miss Akako?" I whisper hesitantly, and gaze up at her warm, tender face.

She studies me for a while with a concerned look on but she says nothing.

After a few more days of reading that book and sleeping in that cold cage and eating just enough to survive, I finally finish the book. At the time I was sitting in Ms. Akako's office, taking in the information with a stern, expressionless face. I finish the conclusion statement and close the book, and close my eyes, concentrating. I open them.

"I'm finished," I say, voice low and hard.

"That's wonderful!" Miss Akako exclaims. "But I'm afraid now that you know everything, I'm not much of a use to you..."

"Huh..?"

"You will be escorted by these kind gentlemen here..." and two men walk in, but they are not kind and gentle looking at all "...to further enhance your education. Good luck!"

"But--!" I start to say but they grab me and harshly yank me out of the room.

They quickly pull me along and I don't understand what the rush is, but they throw some sort of weird, long sword-type of thing at me and shove me in a separated room where a man in white, a silver mask over his face, and a similar sword in hand, waits for me.

Afraid, I stand there trembling, unsure what to do.

"Fight," I hear a voice instructing me, and look around.

I spot a glass sort of window where some people are, and realize that's where the voice came from. But then I'm just knocked to the ground, sword flying out of my hand but another sword right between my eyes. Shocked, I am left completely breathless, staring up at the man in white. What is going on...?

"Okay, start again."

The man lowers the sword and retreats, walking back. I watch him, and he turns around to face me again. I duck, throwing my arms around me, knowing he'll come at me again. A drop of sweat rolls down the side of my cheek and a few moments pass but nothing happens still. I open an anxious eye, and realize that he didn't move a muscle.

"Huh..?" I mutter quietly to myself in confusion.

"Get up," the voice over the intercom says, and I look up at the glass box-window, and stand with uncertainty.

I grip the sword anxiously, glancing at my opponent, and at the glass box-window, and back to my opponent again.

"Fight!"

Sometimes when you think you're ready for anything, you're really not.

He rushes toward me again and though I thought I look real hard he startles me and easily takes me down all over again. I grit my teeth. Damnit.

I am forced to do this over and over and over again. I grow tired, panting heavily, but my opponent looks the exact same, apathetic and unimpressed. It pisses me off.

Before the intercom-whoever had the chance to say "Fight!" I lunge at him with a fury, harshly whipping my sword around at him. I actually start to sort of get him, the element of surprise on my side, but he quickly recomposes himself, studies the situation, and sends my sword flying out of my hands, silver tip pointed at my neck.

I pant, staring at him wildly. He suddenly takes off his mask, revealing his face.

Oh, so there is a human behind that cold figure after all.

"If you want to beat someone you can't just use brute force," he tells me. "You need technique."

My hard expression softens into a confused one.

"Let's try something different," he says. "Pick up your sword."

I study him a moment, but nod and rush to it. I hastily grip it.

"First things first," he says. "Grip and stance."

He takes his sword in hand and poses as if ready to attack. I jump back, ready for him to come at me... Or at least, I hope I'm ready. But he doesn't attack me. Why...?

"You don't grab the thing like you're trying to strangle it," he says, and gestures towards my hands, curled up around the sword and fisted tightly, hands trembling and knuckles white.

"You hold it elegantly, like so," and he demonstrates. I try to mimic it, but I end up only dropping the thing... Again. I sigh. So does he.

He comes up from behind me and startled, I try to escape, but then he grips on to my sword.

"Like this," he says.

I feel myself breathe as I look at his hands, studying the position of his fingers.

"Okay..."

He lets go, and my grip slips a little, but I quickly manage to recover. I watch him as he picks up his own sword again and then begins to attack... But not me. He moves the sword in the air and it looks sort of like ballet in a way, he strikes the empty space, and when he's done he lowers the sword again, and looks at me.

I stare back, in wonder.

"That is a sword technique," he says. "When you use it you must be firm but flexible, concentrating but perfectly aware of your surroundings. There are many techniques and styles, but--"

He stops, but I don't notice. I didn't pay attention to anything he said then, to tell the truth. I only tried imitating his movements, and added a few twists of my own. I remembered The Book of Humans, the sections about fighting, and since I was currently equipped with a sword rather than a gun or a knife or anything else, I had to use it accordingly in the best manner, with the least amount of movement in order to make the easiest maneuvers to defeat my opponent.

I stop, calmly looking in front of me, and then I turn to face him again.

"I... I think we're ready to try fighting again," he says.

We back away from each other slowly, closely studying the other. I take slow, deep breaths to calm myself, my heart beating fast but I am a silent, swift machine ready for anything, truly ready.

"Fight!" they say over the intercom, and he rushes toward me, and I rush toward him, but I make a curve in my dash and manage to attack from behind him.

I have the element of speed on my side, like said in The Book of Humans, I am much faster than a human and can travel past the speed of light at a point, teleporting myself at my will. I have never tried this teleporting-like phenomenon before, and was afraid of it, but it all felt completely natural to me and was easier than my conscience allowed me to think it be.

But the man being quick-witted himself, my opponent turns to face me and strikes at me. Sweat draws on his face and I can tell he's straining, straining to collect his wits in a moment of rushing panic. I effortlessly block the attack, and approach further, striking my sword again. He backs up, defending himself, and tries to distance himself.

Futile.

I catch up with ease and our swords clash again, his strength and mine struggling to overcome the other's. We stare down the other as we force the swords against each other. I leap backward and withdraw my sword, but attack him from the side, he defends, again, again, again, and I work so fast he has no room to think anymore, I can tell, he's losing his technique, for he has smarts but so do I, and I have one thing humans lack: instinct.

I strike his sword again, and it flies out of his hand and lands several meters away. While this happens he trips as he tries to back up, and my sword is pointed at his face as I stand over him.

The roles have been reversed.

We stare at each other, eyebrows knit and sweat on our brow, breathing heavily.

"Stop," they say over the intercom.

I look up, and begin to withdraw coolly, when suddenly something trips me. I fall over harshly, next to my opponent.

"Hey," I hiss at him, glaring. "You're not supposed to do that!"

"In a fight between life and death," he explains, panting, "rules don't matter."

We both stand, and he puts out a hand. What is this...?

"Never heard of a hand shake, huh?" he says with a smile. "Looks like that so-called 'Book of Humans' doesn't teach ya much after all."

I furrow my brows. He's right, I can feel it. I hesitantly reach out with my own hand and he suddenly grasps it. Surprised, I try to back away but he... shakes my hand..?

"This is a hand shake," he tells me. "It means that you agree with the other person and are on equal grounds."

I return the shake, and we lower our hands again.

"Okay..."

"I guess we're done then," he says.

"Yeah..." I say, and begin to walk away.

* * *

Humans truly are interesting.

I don't quite understand them completely. In The Book of Humans it says that humans are superior, but humans can't travel at the speed of light and humans don't have instinct and humans-- But humans obviously have control over me, don't they..?

His words rang in my head again:

"It means that you agree with the person and are on equal grounds..."

Equal? Are we equal?

It's been a long day. I'm escorted back to my cage, empty and cold.

As my escort throws me in and locks me up again he tells me without emotion, "Soon you fight again."

Again..? But haven't I already beaten that swordsman? Or does something new await me? I can't really tell, humans are so difficult to understand.

I curl up in my cage, used to the feeling of loneliness, and close my eyes, resting without sleeping. I lay there for a while, and it's sort of boring, but not too soon after another man comes to my cage and I open an eye to watch him. He dangles a sack of the red substance, blood, at me and I rush over, hungry.

"See this?" he says as he holds it away from me. "Soon you won't be able to get it for free. You'll have to fight for it."

Fight for it..? What does he mean?


	2. Pretend You're Alive

It's later.

One of the men in white comes to me again. He says nothing, and neither do I, but my stomach growls in contempt. He opens my cell and I walk out calmly, eyes bloodshot and blank, head hung. He leads me to another blank white room like everyone's blank white faces and my own, wild and cracked at the edges.

He shoves me in the empty room sort of like the one I fought the man with the sword in, but there was nothing. He hands me a weapon like a scythe. I stare at the emptiness, waiting for each molecule of air to attack me, and I will destroy them until I can't even breathe.

"Fight," the voice says, echoing the world in its fatigued and heavy voice.

I open my eyes, alert and ready. From the other end of the room a door is opened and out from the darkness comes two glowing red dots. A monster enters, walking out of the shadows as if it was once part of it.

A drop of sweat rolls down my cheek. A chiropteran. I'm supposed to fight a chiropteran. But aren't I one..? Yet I look nothing like it, I have no claws and I can speak and I look human.

"Terminate," the voice says again, and I lunge at it without another thought.

It growls at me with a viciousness in its low and eerie moan. I strike, but I only hit it in the shoulder. It howls wildly in pain and shakes itself, drool and blood flying everywhere. It comes at me with its claws and fangs ready to sink into flesh, and its wound healed.

The red overpowers me and I dodge, but its claws scrapes against my cheek like the razor edge of a glacier. I wince.

Karma. Gets me every time.

I touch my cheek where I was hurt, but the wound instantly heals. I knew this would happen after reading The Book of Humans but it still feels so strange to me, so new. I've never bled before. ..

The Chiropteran charges at me again, but its movements are predictable at this point.

I dodge its attack again and I begin to circle it at high speed to confuse it. I jump on its back and thrust my scythe down on it, something strange and wild coming over me, as if I'm possessed by some strange ghost of a person I may have once been in a past life.

The beast howls in pain and stumbles to the ground. I tear at the creature again, mutilating it beyond recognition, the once white walls painted a bright and scorching red, on my face and in my eyes and staining my hands and clothes.

I rip its heart open and then its stomach, its intestines spilling, and at this point it's dead, but I slice off its head too just to make sure. The blood spews everywhere, a violent fountain reflecting all the sins I committed in the few pulsing seconds.

I suddenly stop, drained of energy, and fall over to the ground, panting. I open my eyes wide, realizing what I just did.

I look up at my hands, covered with grime and blood.

_I... I ended a life... _

I trembled at the thought as I glance over at the Chiropteran, a strange, sad feeling filling me. The beast's eyes became hollow, hopeless. When it was alive it was a monster, but once dead it looks... It looks almost human.

I swallow hard, and my stomach rumbles. Hungry. So, so hungry.

I don't like it but my instinct drives me forward, and I lap up the blood I spilled, drinking it all in. I absorb the emptiness of the cold blood, sour against my lips and tearing at my esophagus as I swallow hard.

When I'm full I stand, legs shaking, and I'm escorted away, people rushing in to clean up the mess I created.

I'm led to a few more rooms to repeat the same process over and over again, killing the Chiropteran, feeding off its blood, letting the staff clean up and going to another room to do the same thing all over again.

I don't know why they're making me do this. All they do is tell me "fight," and I do, without a choice in it. Without a choice in anything. And when it's finally all over, I'm thrown in a bathroom to clean myself up.

I step in the shower, the water like ice. I stand under there for a moment and shake, watching the blood fall down the drain with the water, washing everything away.

"D-damn it..." I mutter, trembling, and I can't tell if it's because I'm cold or because of that sick feeling in my heart.

When I'm done a towel is thrown at me and I dry myself. I'm given a clean set of clothes to wear, more like rags compared to the uniforms they wore or whatever it was humans tended to wear.

The person escorting me approaches and says, "Follow me."

His voice is dull and empty, like the dead eyes of a Chiropteran. I shudder in my post-traumatic remorse.

He leaves. I follow.

For a little bit it was the usual path, which I'm used to, expecting to just go back to my cell where I'll sit for a while and then I'll have to fight again.

But, without warning, he turns sharply to the right instead of the usual left. We're going somewhere else, somewhere unfamiliar.

"Where are we going?" I say in curiosity, catching up a bit.

"Shut up," he hisses harshly.

We continue in silence, and he takes his keys out of his pocket and opens a door, which leads to a strange hallway, much less bright than the usual parts of the building. It was eerie, as if it was the soul of those I killed just moments before, already haunting me, already tainting my head with images of their vengeance. Looking all around me, I follow him closer, and he finally stopped at two large, towering double doors. He pulls out his keys again, unlocking them, and opens the doors, which creak in unwelcome.

He enters, and I pause hesitantly, watching as some workers walk by. Always watching.

"Come on," my escort says to me in annoyance, and I gingerly step in.

As we proceed, some men in white rush out of some other doors, with someone in a bed. Were they injured...? They rushed by too quickly for me to tell. I blink a few times, staring after them, trying to make out what was going on.

"Nothing to see there," my escort growls to me in his deep voice, and I swallow, a bad feeling looming over me.

He continues to guide me again and we step on some sort of platform. He presses a button and it starts to lower. Frightened, I step towards the side, but my escort remains calm, a statue. Quickly my panic subsides as we reach solid ground again. In wonder, I look up at where we came from.

"H-huh...?" I whisper under my breath.

"This is where you will be contained from now on," my escort interrupts my thoughts, and I turn to look at him. It was then when I realized we were looking at cages... Several cages. And there were... people... in the cages..? I wasn't the only one? Are these people like me?

He walks to one of the cells and opens it.

"Get in," he growls, and I shamefully obey.

He slams it shut, locking it, and walks away. I watch him go in bewilderment.

I frown.

I slide against the wall, slowly dropping to the floor, my hands still gripping the bars of my new prison. I close my eyes to think.

"Hey, you," a voice from behind me sounds, and echoes across the room, as if it could fly.

I turn, letting go of the bars. Another person, wearing the same clothes as I, stood before me.

He was tall, looking awkward in the rags he wore, and had a stern expression. He seemed anti-social and it made me feel weary of him, and I didn't want to talk to him. He didn't look like he wanted to talk either, but he was seemed forced to. His eyes were narrow, burning like his hair, orange in color.

"Uh... Hi," I mutter, not used to conversation.

"You're new, huh?" he says in his deep voice, arms folded, more like a statement than a question.

"I guess..." I pause, staring at my feet.

I look back up at him with a sudden determined expression. "Can you tell me what's going on?"

He shakes his head and chuckles. "Heh, I wish I knew myself. We've gotta be here for a reason though... That reason must be to fight."

"But why?"

"I don't know."

I pause, looking away. I ask the staff here, they tell me to shut up. I ask my fellow prisoners and they just shrug. What is our purpose here?

"Hi there," another one says with a smile.

I look over, startled. She's leaning on the side of her cell, peering into the one I now share with the other guy.

"Don't be afraid, we're all in this together," she says and laughs lightly, her voice carefree. "I'm Marco. Nice to meet you."

"Um... You too.."

"Everyone here was new once, we were all kind of shaky for a while. It just takes a while to get used to it, hm?" she smiles, tosses her red hair. "Over there is Darth, that's Gudrif, Jan, Dimas, Lulu, Gestas, Ace, and the asshole you share your cell with, Karmen."

"Hey!" Karmen says, folding his arms angrily.

She only laughs at him, and a few of the others chuckle as well.

She turns back to me. "What's your name?"

I pause, blinking, looking all around me at everyone looking back.

"Um..." I begin to say as I finish studying my surroundings. "I'm Moses..."

"Well, welcome, Moses," Marco grins.

"O-okay..." I say with a shy and uncertain smile.

I guess not everyone here is so bad.

Most of the time, though, we just keep to ourselves, sitting in awkward silence, waiting for the moment of freedom and yet we remain slaves still, fighting, fighting, nothing but fighting.

After my own round of fights I'm thrown back in my cell with Karmen, falling over to the ground.

I pick myself up, coughing a little.

"Damn humans..." Karmen curses under his breath, watching the man in white leave.

"Are all humans really so bad?" Lulu pipes up, pouting.

Karmen hisses angrily. "If these ones aren't, why the hell should I think any of the rest of them are? It's not like I care about them anyway."

Lulu looks down at the floor, falling silent. The whole room is quiet.

There's something about this hopeless silence that makes me sick.

* * *

It's a couple days later and I'm told to fight again. I lunge for the Chiroptera over and over, every day feeling like de-ja-vu, and all of them looking the same, vicious, brutal, and so out of touch with reality.

The way I feel sometimes.

I swing my scythe at it and blood flies in every direction. I swallow but swallow only the dry anxiety in my mouth. I hate blood, how sweet it tastes, how bitter it feels, a poisoned wine, and I can't stand it anymore.

After I kill I begin to lose my appetite.

After I kill instead of the hunger that boils in my stomach there is an empty, sick feeling, empty like the Chiropteran's eyes before that last desperate human life flashes across its contracting pupils, and then it all washes out, lost forever in a world it will never live in again.

When I first came here I fought because I was told to. Then I fought for food. But now I have no reason, no reason at all.

There is only one thing I know: whatever it is I'm fighting for, it isn't freedom.

Whenever I go over to feed off of the carcass of the monster I just killed, my taste buds freeze up and shudder, and I know deep down that this blood is human, red and burning, now decaying and cold before me.

No amount of blood could quench my thirst or drown my sorrows, and no matter how much blood I downed nothing could fill the emptiness I felt.

The days continue on like this. I realize I have become like the rest of them: dead inside yet our hearts somehow beating, waiting, waiting for something to come by and spare us all.

* * *

Darth and Gudrif came back from their fightings and we could only wait for our next turn. Karmen and I were throwing a pebble back and forth to each other, a sort of game we picked up, the only interaction he can stand having with me. Lulu suddenly breaks the silence.

"Guys! Look! Look up there!" she shouts eagerly, pointing.

"What is it now, Lulu?" Gestas says with an agitated sigh, but quickly realizes what she meant.

"Is that..?"

"New people! Two of them! Yaay, we have more friends!"

I frown. More? It only saddens me.

All of this fighting and being cooped up in here like animals is a miserable, meaningless existence. Every last one of us couldn't tell the difference between life and death anymore, if we ever understood the difference. Perhaps that was something only a human could feel.

A man in white escorts two young looking people--Chiropterans--whatever we all are--down to our cells, throws them in, the girl with Marco, the other with Ace. Everyone was dead silent, eyes wide open, waiting for the man to leave. When he vanished Marco instantly turned to the girl thrown in with her and smiled, said hello.

"Hi there! Don't be afraid, we're all in the same boat as you. I'm Marco, that's Moses and Karmen, that's.." she ran through the list, the same introduction she gave me, without losing her ingenuity.

"So what's your name?"

The new girl looks frightened, overwhelmed, pathetic. Is that what I looked like when I first came here?

"I'm Irene..." she says in her small voice.

"Such a pretty name!" Marco says loudly, her voice full of color and enthusiasm. "And what about you over there?"

"Guy..."

"Guy and Irene, huh? Well, even though everyone here is more anti-social than anything, everyone's really nice folks deep down, so don't feel intimidated or anything, okay? See, me and Lulu over there are the oddballs, no one else will break the ice. Isn't that right, Lu?"

"Yup!"

Irene gave a hesitant smile.

* * *

A while after Irene and Guy entered our lives, the atmosphere somehow became a lot less intimidating for all of us, and we tended to open up a bit more.

Irene herself was very shy but she was so nice and gentle it seemed to rub off on the rest of us. Guy was polite and considerate but very introverted and kind of strange, but he too effected us somehow.

Those who were extroverted now aren't afraid of being extroverted. Especially Ace, our little butterfly.

I remember recently Ace came back from fighting, but the person who escorted him looked like a higher-up, who scolded him and slapped him, but Ace took it, he didn't even flinch.

I can still see his face, hard and determined, like rock.

Then he was grabbed by the arm and dragged over to us, thrown into his cell with Guy, who cowered in a corner.

The man walked away and Ace sat there, staring after him with the same expression still.

"Ace! What happened?" Marco blurts the instant the man leaves.

Irene gasps but remains in silence, as we all did at the moment.

"Nothing," he says.

"What does that mean?! It has to be something if--"

"I did nothing. I refused to fight."

"Why?"

"Don't you see it? The moment just before you kill one of those beasts, you see a faint bit of life in their eye, the life they used to have and never will have again. The life we never had and can't even imagine. We're being used as slaves and we don't even care."

We all fall silent, for we know what he means exactly.

"If this strength of ours is supernatural, I want to use it to protect, not kill," Ace says in his deep, calm voice, like ice.

"I agree," someone suddenly speaks up, and to my shock, I realize it's me. "I don't want to be anyone's slave anymore. I hate it. Those humans are doing this for a reason, but I don't know what. Our lives are their toys and I don't like it. I can't stand any of it any more. These glaring artificial lights, this white fake building with painted white fake faces, and all the fighting, and all the damned blood!"

I finish, amazed at my own words. I breathe in, not realizing until now how worked up I was.

"M-moses..." Lulu whispers.

I glance around anxiously, and swallow.

"So that's why..." I turn my head back. Karmen... "...You're so thin and sickly looking now..."

I look away, and shut my eyes for a minute, and then open them.

"Yes..." I whisper in admittance.

An awkward silence falls again on us all, like the plague, everyone biting their lower lip in agitated thought.

"You have to eat," Karmen suddenly snaps. "Or else you'll... You'll... You could die!" his voice is marked with desperation.

I study his face carefully, his eyebrows tightened, his teeth gritted, fists clenched, his whole expression fit the determined, stubborn man he was.

"Die...?" I ask with a sad smile. "A relief that would surely be."

Karmen looks shocked. "You can't just say that--!"

"Settle down," Ace interrupts him. "Let's not get too worked up here..."

"But..."

"Karmen," Ace's face was strong, knowing; he filled us all with awe. Then he turns to me.

"Moses," he said. "Eat."

I stared at him, bewildered. "I-I can't... They..."

"I know. I know. Chiroptera... They probably were once human... But then something happened to them, something that turned them into a vicious and blood thirsty beast, without a mind or soul. When I chose not to fight it wasn't because I felt sorry for the beast. No, not at all. I just hated being treated like an object, a machine, like an experiment to be tested and then thrown away, and I hated that the Chiroptera were being used in the exact same way. But then after I slay a Chiropteran... That look in their eyes... It is sad, yes, but something in them also seems to say 'thank you,' as if we're freeing them from their prison... Giving them peace."

I clench my fist and tremble all over.

"But... don't we deserve our peace too?!"

Ace sighed, and only said dreamily, "I wonder... if there's a world outside of this place..."

After that we were all silent for a very, very long time.


End file.
